International Consortium Releases Canola Genome Sequence

An international consortium of more than 30 research institutes, have deciphered the complex genome sequence of oilseed rape, Brassica napus L., more commonly known as canola, the most important oilseed crop in Europe, Canada, and Australia.

The study showed that apart from the post-Neolithic hybridization that led to its formation, oilseed rape has one of the most highly duplicated genome of all flowering plants, because of numerous older polyploidizations that occurred during its evolution. This phenomenon led to the accumulation of a great number of genes, 101,000 in total, the highest gene densities of any previously sequenced organism, four times more than the 20,000-25,000 genes of humans.

Boulos Chalhoub, from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) who coordinated the research and federated research efforts within the international consortium said "The main difficulty for oilseed rape has been to differentiate its different sub-genomes. This has been achieved by the development of an original sequencing strategy, bioinformatics tools and the analysis of duplicated gene expression and their regulation."

The paper presenting the research results is published in the August 22, 2014 edition of Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1253435). For more information about this breakthrough, read the following articles: http://presse.inra.fr/en/Resources/Press-releases/Oilseed-rape-genome-sequenced; http://www.plantsci.org.uk/news/oilseed-rape-genome-sequenced.